Flemish Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele says he wants to support “a part” for the billion-dollar investment in Antwerp that put the BASF chemical group up. “But we are not going to keep anything alive that will not be profitable,” said Diependaele. “We can build a bridge, but doing that permanent is absurd.”
Earlier this week BASF set conditions for the construction of a large CO2 shelter installation in the port of Antwerp. The government must assist, said CEO Jan Remeysen in an interview with De Tijd.
In a response, Diependaele says that people are in consultation, and that the parties will look together how the investment can happen, especially in view of the “changed economic conditions”. In concrete terms, nothing has been decided yet. The final decision on the investment will only be created at the end of this year.
BASF could, if the investment continued, avoid a million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. That is a third of the total emissions.